WASHINGTON — Astronomers are calling on nations to ban advertising in space that can be seen from the ground, calling it the latest threat to the dark and quiet sky.

At a briefing during the 245th Meeting of the American Astronomical Society earlier this month, the organization rolled out a statement calling for bans on “obtrusive space advertising” because of the interference it could cause for groundbased astronomy.

Obtrusive space advertising is defined in U.S. federal law as “advertising in outer space that is capable of being recognized by a human being on the surface of the Earth without the aid of a telescope or other technological device.” Such advertising is banned in federal law through prohibitions on granting launch licenses for missions carrying payloads to carry out space advertising.

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[–] 53 points 5 months ago (1 child)

If I see your shit advertised in space I will never buy your product again.

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  • [–] 41 points 5 months ago (9 children)

    Please God no. This timeline is fucking horrible.

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  • [–] 6 points 5 months ago (5 children)
  • [–] 4 points 5 months ago (3 children)

    Oh please, y'all would talk about molotoves and guillotines everyday, yet none of you would do a thing.

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  • [–] 5 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    Wild that you went from suggesting scalping to accusing others of incapacity for violence. When’s the last time you scalped someone, or were at least present when someone was scalped?

    But seriously, don’t answer that. Admissions of arson and interpersonal violence don’t mean much anonymously online unless you bring receipts, but as anonymity isn’t actually anonymous, so dropping a Greatest Hits of crimes the state couldn’t prove at the time for clout is ill advised.

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  • [–] 118 points 5 months ago (11 children)

    I will not buy anything from any company that puts advertising in space. I will also make it my life's work to persuade everyone else likewise.

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  • [–] 39 points 5 months ago* (8 children)

    We're 43 people already, the remaining 95% will continue to buy it anyway because...

    1. It just tastes better
    2. It can't be that bad
    3. It's convenient
    4. I've always bought that
    5. I have nothing to hide

    Pick as many as you like. More than just dissuading people, I think it's high time to sabotage and destruct.

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  • [–] 11 points 5 months ago (6 children)

    TIL 43 people are 5% of the world population...

    Also, how do you plan to sabotage space billboards?

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  • [–] 4 points 5 months ago

    Well, you wouldn't sabotage the billboard. You would sabotage their factories until it costs them more than the billboard makes them. Make it unprofitable to create them.

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  • [–] 34 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (3 children)

    This is exactly like skywriting.

    Once it got popular it got really popular for advertising, then people got mad and it was an affront to God and legislators were forced to shut it down.

    But also, after the novelty it stopped being effective and it just made people angry.

    Now, arguably 2026’s companies care less about making people mad than any time since like the coal wars. But I still think you can’t keep posting people off forever and expect good brand outcomes. And if you can, you don’t need ads do you?

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  • [–] [S] 15 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

    the coal wars

    As an aside, it just made me a little happy to know that there's at least one other person out in the world that's read a history book at some point.

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  • [–] 6 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    It doesn’t but I mean in a corporations not feeding any consequence way.

    Obviously ads are not like company towns or the coal union suppression.

    But I do think corporations were only more hostile to people in that era. And modern companies have zero fear of repercussions, because they face none.

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  • [–] [S] 9 points 5 months ago

    Yeah, well.

    Unfortunately it's a deliberately untaught period in our history, so the vast majority of Americans have never heard of it and probably can't conceive of literally going to war against corporations, so it makes me happy whenever I come across someone who's aware of it.

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  • [–] 25 points 5 months ago

    Do all other advertising next

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  • [–] [S] 21 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    An older story, I know, but today was the first I heard of space-based advertising, and it made my blood boil a little.

    To be clear, the infuriating part is people trying to put ads in the sky, not the astronomers fighting back, who are in fact awesome.

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  • [–] 13 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    I don't think it goes far enough. Satellites should not be allowed to arrange or emit for any aesthetics reason, advertising or not. They should be required to do everything they can to go unseen.

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  • [–] 4 points 5 months ago

    And the near-side of the moon should be preserved with bans on commercial activity and construction projects.

    Or maybe just any that can be seen from earth, even with a telescope. If you can dig a tunnel and build an underground complex without the ports and vents being visible, then I guess that can be allowed. But that should be a negotiating chip, not a part of the first proposal.

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  • [–] 11 points 5 months ago

    Excerpt from "Red Dwarf: Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers": For anyone living on Earth the result would be mindfizzlingly spectacular. One hundred and twenty-eight stars would appear to go supernova simultaneously, burning with such ferocity they would be visible even in daylight.

    And the hundred and twenty-eight supernovae would spell out a message.

    And this would be the message:

    ‘COKE ADDS LIFE!’

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  • [–] 9 points 5 months ago

    [off topic]

    "The Man Who Sold The Moon" by Robert Heinlein. Satire of big business written long before Sputnik. Am american hustler is raising money for a Lunar rocket. One of his pitches is that if the Soviets get there first they plan on putting a big hammer and sickle across the face of the moon.

    Fun read.

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  • [–] 16 points 5 months ago

    It's about time.

    Although honestly, with this government, all this might do is give them ideas...

    They should add to it though. No construction projects or any commercial activity on the near-side of the moon.

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  • [–] 8 points 5 months ago

    Isn’t it lovely that we live in a world where we need a law to ban such a thing? It honestly already doesn’t matter anymore because when you look up at the sky you almost see more Starlink trash than stars…

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  • [–] 8 points 5 months ago (8 children)

    If they block my stars I will go full terrorist.

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  • [+] -7 points 5 months ago (7 children)

    They bomb kids daily and you're complacent, you're telling me if they added more ads you're gonna finally revolt?

    I don't buy it.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago

    I think you both make good points

    Reality is simple: those kids are bombed invisibly, nobody sees them. It happens, but many people don't pick up on it because suppression of news and propaganda

    Those commercials you see 24/7 and there is no opt out, no escaping it, and it would destroy the beauty of the world

    I'm not trying to say that bombed kids don't matter, or are somehow less important, of course, but I do think that this is the reality of the situation will be simply that visibility will make all the difference

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (4 children)

    they only bomb kids in far-away lands, it's abstract and easily put aside for most people.

    i'm sure op is exaggerating but people not doing anything about genocide in gaza/lebanon but going on strike over e.g. gas prices is kinda expected human behavior sadly

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (1 child)

    We're rounding up brown U.S. citizens and putting them in concentration camps right now. Except about 1/3 of us don't believe it at all, and most of the rest of us think "concentration camps" is hyperbole, and maybe it's "just people here illegally, so they deserve it."

    Almost no one is doing shit about it, including myself.

    So, yeah, no one is going to go "full terrorist" if they start launching space ad satellites. I mean, what does that even mean? Discovering when they're launching and sabotaging the rocket? Come on, no one is doing that.

    It's going to happen, it needs to happen first for anyone to react. But, since we've allowed billionaires to consolidate power amongst a handful of people, we're not going to be able to stop them, without... well, use your imagination. It won't be pretty.

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  • [–] 7 points 5 months ago

    Coke adds life...

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  • [–] 6 points 5 months ago

    I think i might kill someone if i see an ad in the night sky

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  • [–] 6 points 5 months ago

    The day the night sky fills with billboards is the day I switch from "I really hope we as a species can get better" to "I really hope we as a species become extinct soon."

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  • [–] 6 points 5 months ago

    Aliens: we come in peace

    Scientists: can you help us with some of our problems? Maybe give us fusion power? Tell us about your culture?

    Aliens: actually we came about the Coca-Cola.

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  • [–] 6 points 5 months ago

    Its already at a point where I can't take a long exposure without a dozen spacex satellites and other junk zooming through my frame. Light pollution is already at a tipping point where no stars are visible in or around large cities.

    Support your local amateur astronomer club. Support the dark skies association.

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  • [–] 5 points 5 months ago

    Worry not astronomers! AI space tech companies are already working hard on telescopes on moon which you can access via a monthly subscription! Hurray! /s

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  • [–] 5 points 5 months ago

    BE SURE TO DRINK YOUR OVALTINE

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  • [–] 7 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    If we ban space advertising, then only criminals will be able to advertise in space.

    What we need to fight bad advertisers in space is good advertisers in space.

    This could be solved if we only allowed astronauts to conceal-carry ad-copy.

    (I like to use gun arguments out of context, because it emphasizes how dumb they are.)

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago

    Conservatives watch too many westerns, where the good guy defeats the bad guy in a standoff.

    This is completely unrealistic though, because a "bad guy with a gun" would just show up and start shooting before anyone even knows he has a gun. And by the time the good guy gets there, dozens of people would already be dead.

    Also "good guy with a gun" reeks of vigilantism and copaganda. "Oh, thank god the sheriff is here to save the day! Oh... oh wait he's just gonna abuse the laborers and move on, without bothering the evil mining baron who works them to death with impunity? OH GOD THEY'RE SHAKING HANDS! OH. OH NO. THE HUMANITY!!!"

    Not to mention the casual racism that isn't even subtle. "Those injuns live right over on the other side of that ridge! We gotta put a posse together to go kill their men and enslave their women and children."

    "Ahh, so these are the bad guys. When are the heroes going to show up to stop them?" ... "Ohh noo, these are the "heroes"... 😫"

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  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago

    ~~astronomers ~~ every human being

    FTFY

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  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago

    Imagine being born under an off-brand star.

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  • [–] 4 points 5 months ago

    Anyone read Arthur C. Clarke's short story "Watch This Space" where a giant Coke logo is lit up on the moon? It was meant to be funny, not instructional. Sigh. "Torment Nexus" and all that, I suppose.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    What about all the LEO internet satellites

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago

    global

    Good luck~!

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (1 child)

    It would probably work better as a weapon against companies on the ground than as what is intended. Advertise for a company and piss people off so they boycott or harm the company instead of buying stuff from them

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 5 months ago

    Hey all, after seeing the interest in this thread, I decided to make ads in space the topic of my YT video for the week.

    If you enjoy the video, please let me know what you think.

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  • [–] 0 points 5 months ago

    Suggestion: Deploy anti satellite 🛰 weapon, and extort other nations by threatening their satellites in order to pay off the national debt. Somebody get Donald Trump on the phone.

    I'm only half joking. Kessler syndrome is probably going to happen sooner or later anyway. And I do think it would be possible to convince Trump the scheme is a good idea if you had access to him.

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